Format: Paperback
Pages: 158 pages
Published: 1962
Publisher: Penguin Books
Genre: Classics, Fiction & Literature, Horror Continue reading “Book Review: We Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson”
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192 pages
Published: 1928
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Genre: Classics, Fiction & Literature Continue reading “Book Review: Quicksand by Nella Larsen”
Format: Paperback
Pages: 410 pages
Published: August 1938
Publisher: HarperCollins
Genre: Fiction, Classics
Continue reading “Book Review: Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier”
Format: Paperback
Pages: 308 pages
Published: October 17, 2017
Publisher: Udon Entertainment
Genre: Mangas, Classics, Graphic Novels
Synopsis:
The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe is a brilliant collection of some of his best-known stories: The Tell Tale Heart (a murder s haunting guilt), The Cask of Amontillado (a story of brilliant revenge), and The Fall of the House of Usher (an ancient house full of very dark secrets). Also included in this collection are The Mask of the Red Death (horrors of ‘the Plague’), and the most famous of all his poems: The Raven (a lover s decline into madness). Best read in a dimly-lit room with the curtains drawn, Poe s brilliant works come to life in darkly thrilling ways in this Manga Classic adaptation.” Continue reading “Book Review: Manga Classics: The Stories of Edgar Allan Poe by Stacy King”
The year is fast approaching and if you are like me, you probably noticed that you have only a couple of weeks to reach your 2017 Reading Challenge Goal (I am 26 books behind of my 100 books reading goal). Whether you are using Goodreads Reading Challenge or a challenge you set for yourself, don’t worry fellow bookworms! Victory is only in arms reach and can be fully achieved. I have a variety of books that will help you achieve your goal. And the best thing? They are short and so good that you will finish them in a day! Continue reading “Books To Help Win Your Reading Challenge”
Format: Paperback
Pages: 271 pages
Published: 1817
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Genre: Fiction,Classics
Synopsis:
Jane Austen’s last completed novel, Persuasion is a delightful social satire of England’s landed gentry and a moving tale of lovers separated by class distinctions. After years apart, unmarried Anne Elliot, the heroine Jane Austen called “almost too good for me,” encounters the dashing naval officer others persuaded her to reject, as he now courts the rash and younger Louisa Musgrove. Superbly drawn, these characters and those of Anne’s prideful father, Sir Walter, the scheming Mrs. Clay, and the duplicitous William Elliot, heir to Kellynch Hall, become luminously alive—so much so that the poet Tennyson, visiting historic Lyme Regis, where a pivotal scene occurs, exclaimed: “Don’t talk to me of the Duke of Monmouth. Show me the exact spot where Louisa Musgrove fell!”
Tender, almost grave, Persuasion offers a glimpse into Jane Austen’s own heart while it magnificently displays the full maturity of her literary power.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 410 pages
Published: 1913
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Genre: Fiction & Literature, Classics
Synopsis:
Edith Wharton’s satiric anatomy of American society in the first decade of the twentieth century appeared in 1913; it both appalled and fascinated its first reviewers, and established her as a major novelist. The Saturday Review wrote that she had ‘assembled as many detestable people as it is possible to pack between the covers of a six-hundred page novel’, but concluded that the book was ‘brilliantly written’, and ‘should be read as a parable’. It follows the career of Undine Spragg, recently arrived in New York from the Midwest and determined to conquer high society. Glamorous, selfish, mercenary, and manipulative, her principal assets are her striking beauty, her tenacity, and her father’s money. With her sights set on an advantageous marriage, Undine pursues her schemes in a world of shifting values, where triumph is swiftly followed by disillusion. Wharton was re-creating an environment she knew intimately, and Undine’s education for social success is chronicled in meticulous detail. The novel superbly captures the world of post-Civil War America, as ruthless in its social ambitions as in its business and politics.
Continue reading “Book Review: The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton”
Format: Paperback
Pages: 56 pages
Published: February 26, 2015
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Genre: Fiction, Short Stories, Classics
Synopsis:
A short story by Kate Chopin. The story takes place in an unnamed city–a city large enough to have a department store, a fashionable restaurant, a theater, and a cable car–probably in the early 1890s.
Kate Chopin was a great writer and never given the respect she deserved during her lifetime. Besides her popular novel, The Awakening, Chopin explores taboo issues such as what is it like to be a woman in society or the race identity. Like her popular novel, The Awakening, Chopin was never afraid to talk about issues and takes on the challenges that everyone else is afraid to touch.
Continue reading “Book Review: A Pair of Silk Stockings by Kate Chopin”
Format: Paperback
Pages: 693 pages
Published: 1794
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Classics
Synopsis:
A best-seller in its day and a potent influence on Sade, Poe, and other purveyors of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic horror, The Mysteries of Udolpho remains one of the most important works in the history of European fiction. After Emily St. Aubuert is imprisoned by her evil guardian, Count Montoni, in his gloomy medieval fortress in the Appenines, terror becomes the order of the day. With its dream-like plot and hallucinatory rendering of its characters’ psychological states, The Mysteries of Udolpho is a fascinating challenge to contemporary readers.
The Mysteries of Udolpho is a very long and densely written novel. It took me a real long time to finish this one. The writing is very inconsistent, Radcliffe drags on for a very long time. It took at least a third of the novel to get to the main part of the story. As customary with 18th century novels, authors can sometimes be repetitive in their text.But with Radcliffe, she goes over the top. Radcliffe gets real repetitive and there are times you either had a hard time following what was going on in the plot or bored of reading of the book altogether. I completely understand why some readers dislike this book. Continue reading “Book Review: The Mysteries of Udoplho by Ann Radcliffe”
4:50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It is interesting to see the different writing styles Christie’s incorporates into her stories, even when they contain the same character! But I feel that is a good way to keep the story fresh and different every time a new one came out. Nevertheless, I highly enjoyed this one. Along the way I was trying to figure who the murderer and of course, my idea of the killer was completely off. I’m having fun reading these Christie novels!
(Full review of this book will be up soon!)
